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Tuesday, February 21, 2012

Common sense.

Lately I've read several different articles pointing out mistakes made when making studies.

Studies on how men think and act are incorrect since the test subjects were young men with their hormones flying high. Their way of acting and thinking is different from how older men think and act. As a layman I always took for granted that scientists made sure to make the study based on people of all ages. It makes sense to me.

Then there is the study that shows that taking multivitamin supplements raises the mortality rate in older women. We all know (or should know by now) that taking too much of certain vitamin supplements is bad for our health, so what does this study add? Well, nothing. The study did not control how much the women took of the supplements. It did not look at their ordinary diet and it did not ask why they took the supplements in the first place. It only looked at what the women said about the supplements and diet.
Mmm... Yeah, all my friends say that taking people's words for it instead of checking the facts is stupid. Now spread that through the media and make huge headlines of it.

Humans turns out to be social creatures rather than competitive, aggressive and brutish as has been the "fact" up until about a decade ago. Humans were seen to be born without morals, ethics and a will to cooperate with others. That humans are social by nature was something that had to be "discovered". The way we naturally interact, even as babies, seems to have been missed by scientist after scientist. Now I'm guessing that the idea was based on the testosterone drunk young men mentioned earlier. Really. "I'm a young man, I'm a scientist, the way I look at the world is the correct way since I'm the greatest and the rest of the world will always act and think as I do."